Ill Senator Is Called Responsive; Incident Keeps Capital Riveted

By KATE ZERNIKE

Published: December 15, 2006

Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, was said to be in critical condition but ''responsive'' Thursday after an operation to stop bleeding in his brain, and Democrats declared that his condition would not imperil the narrow majority they will carry into the Senate next month.

The attending physician of the Capitol, Adm. John F. Eisold, who examined Mr. Johnson before he was sent to the hospital Wednesday, said the bleeding was caused by a rare tangling of the blood vessels in the brain, known as a congenital arteriovenous malformation, that physicians say often goes undetected. The operation successfully drained the blood and stabilized the problem, Admiral Eisold said in a statement released by Mr. Johnson's office.

''He has been appropriately responsive to both word and touch,'' Admiral Eisold said. ''No further surgical intervention has been required.''

For a second day, Washington and the political world were riveted by Mr. Johnson's condition and the possibility that it could undo the result of last month's Senate elections, which gave control of the chamber to the Democrats. While emphasizing that they were concerned only for Mr. Johnson and his family, members of both parties could not escape the dramatic if hypothetical implications should he die or be unable to continue in office: that South Dakota's Republican governor would name a replacement for the next two years and, assuming that replacement was a Republican, shift control of the Senate back to President Bush's party.

Mr. Johnson, who had attracted little attention outside of agriculture circles in his 10 years in the Senate and decade in the House, was suddenly in the spotlight, with cable news channels breaking in with every update on his progress.

Late in the afternoon, Mr. Johnson's wife, Barbara, said in a statement that he was responding to her voice and following directions after the operation, which began late Wednesday, and that he was reaching for her hand and holding it by Thursday morning.

A spokesman for Mr. Johnson said his doctors were watching to see whether bleeding recurred in the next 48 to 72 hours.

Doctors who specialize in the condition said that in the overwhelming majority of cases the bleeding does not cause long-term damage, particularly for someone who showed the symptoms Mr. Johnson did. But they said the outcome might not be known for weeks or months.

According to precedent, Mr. Johnson, who will turn 60 on Dec. 28, would lose his seat only if he died or resigned. In that case, Gov. Mike Rounds would choose a replacement to fill the vacancy until a special election in November 2008.

Even if Mr. Johnson is unable to vote in January, the Democrats would have a 50-49 majority in the Senate, which would allow them to pass a series of resolutions awarding them chairmanships and majority membership of committees.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, appeared before reporters and cameras on Thursday morning and said that he had just visited Mr. Johnson in his room and that ''he looked great.''

Mr. Reid declined to say whether he believed Mr. Johnson looked well enough to be able to return to the Senate, saying that anything he said would only raise more questions among reporters. ''To me,'' he said, ''he looked very good.''

Mr. Reid, who spent much of Wednesday at the hospital, also said that he had spoken to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the incoming Republican leader, and that both sides in the Senate were proceeding as they were before Mr. Johnson's illness, with the Democrats expecting to assume their 51-49 majority.

''There isn't a thing that changes,'' Mr. Reid said, adding that the Republicans selected names for their smaller memberships of committees on Wednesday.

Mr. Johnson's illness highlighted the fragility of the Democrats' new majority. The Senate press gallery handed out copies of the relevant provisions of South Dakota election law, as well a special organizing resolution passed in 2001, when the Senate was split 50-50, that outlined how the two parties shared power.

In the South Dakota capital, Mr. Rounds appealed for prayers for the senator -- not speculation about what would happen if he died.

Even some Republican lawmakers and aides criticized news coverage of Mr. Johnson's illness as ghoulish, saying it put too much emphasis on who would control the Senate and not enough on his health. Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, who is to become the No. 2 Republican in the Senate in January, brushed off questions about procedures if the membership split 50-50. ''We don't even want to talk about that,'' he told Fox News, adding, ''I'd like to be in the majority, but I don't want to do it that way.''

Mr. McConnell issued a statement titled ''The recovery of Senator Tim Johnson'' -- emphasis on recovery. ''I know all my Senate colleagues join me in praying for Senator Johnson's full and speedy recovery,'' he said. ''Our thoughts are with his wife, Barbara, and his family during this time.''

Mr. Reid said Mr. McConnell was ''thoughtful'' in a telephone conversation Wednesday. And Democratic aides said they had not received any Republican requests to discuss any power-sharing rules.

An estimated 300,000 Americans have arteriovenous malformations, said Dr. Jay P. Mohr, the principal investigator in a National Institutes of Health study of the condition and the director of the stroke center at Columbia University Medical Center. Most cases go undetected, Dr. Mohr said, and there is bleeding in only about 30,000. Of the patients with bleeding, Dr. Mohr said, only about 10 percent to 20 percent suffer damage severe enough that they can no longer function as they did before. About half are left with such minor problems, he said, that ''they aren't sure they had a stroke.''

Noah Pinegar, a spokesman for Mr. Johnson, said the senator began to stutter midday Wednesday during his weekly conference call with reporters from the Senate recording studio in the Capitol, then recovered and ended the call. He then walked back to his office across the street. Aides said that he seemed weak, but that he did not collapse as a Senate official had said earlier, and they summoned Admiral Eisold. The doctor sent Mr. Johnson by ambulance to George Washington University Hospital, where he underwent tests before the operation.

Specialists in the condition, while emphasizing that they did not know the specifics of Mr. Johnson's case, varied in their assessment of the likely damage. Dr. Mohr said that what had been reported -- that Mr. Johnson could still hold the phone and walk -- ''suggests to me that the brain was not totally destroyed.'' Very likely, he said, doctors discovered blood that had leaked in the ventricles, which could be removed ''with very little damage to the adjacent brain.''

''He was able to get up and walk around and report to a local hospital,'' Dr. Mohr said. ''These are the things that could make for a favorable result.''

Photo: Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota, left, with his Republican counterpart, John Thune, surveying the effects of a drought last summer. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)(pg. A36)